Chicago police Officer Robert Rialmo arrives for a hearing at court at Grand and Central avenues in Chicago on March 7, 2018.

Chicago police Officer Robert Rialmo arrives for a hearing at court at Grand and Central avenues in Chicago on March 7, 2018. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

Dan HinkelChicago Tribune

Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has rejected a recommendation from the city’s police disciplinary agency that he seek to fire an officer in a controversial 2015 shooting that killed two people, according to a letter obtained by the Tribune.

Three months after disciplinary officials called for Officer Robert Rialmo’s firing, Johnson has determined that the officer was justified in shooting Quintonio LeGrier, 19, as he carried a baseball bat during a domestic incident, according to Johnson’s letter to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability. Rialmo also accidentally shot and killed a bystander, Bettie Jones, 55.

Johnson’s ruling, however, is not the final word, and his decision could set up a rare clash with police disciplinary officials. The case presents an early test for a police disciplinary system that was revamped over the last two years amid a political firestorm in response to shootings and alleged misconduct by officers.

Johnson must now work with COPA’s leaders to see if they can reach agreement on the case. If Johnson and COPA officials cannot agree, the matter goes to one member of the Chicago Police Board, who can either accept the superintendent’s position, ending the proceedings, or side with the disciplinary agency, sending the case to the full Police Board for hearings on his potential firing.

Contrary to COPA’s findings, Johnson found that Rialmo was justified in shooting an armed assailant who presented a serious threat. Johnson’s ruling, unlike COPA’s, found that the evidence supported Rialmo’s contention that LeGrier swung the bat at him. Even if LeGrier hadn’t swung the bat, Johnson concluded, he was an assailant, and the officer acted reasonably in opening fire.

Family photos

Bettie Jones, left, and Quintonio LeGrier were fatally shot by police at a West Garfield Park residence Dec. 26, 2015.

Bettie Jones, left, and Quintonio LeGrier were fatally shot by police at a West Garfield Park residence Dec. 26, 2015.

(Family photos)

“An investigation should not second-guess an officer’s decisions by suggesting how COPA itself would have resolved the incident,” Johnson wrote. “Instead, an investigation must address the question of whether the officer, while making split-second decisions in tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving circumstances, acted as another reasonable department member on the scene would have done.”

Rialmo’s disciplinary troubles might not be over even if he is cleared in the shooting. He was charged in January with two counts of battery and one count of theft, all misdemeanors, after a bar fight late last year. Surveillance cameras captured Rialmo punching two men in the face. His attorney, Joel Brodsky, said his client was defending himself from drunken aggressors.

Rialmo remains on desk duty and stripped of his police powers.

Attorneys representing the city in the litigation over the shooting had sought to keep Johnson’s ruling secret, and Cook County Judge James O’Hara on Tuesday entered a protective order preventing wide dissemination of the letter until early April.

Numerous attorneys involved in the litigation either could not be reached or declined to comment, citing the judge’s order, as did LeGrier’s mother, Janet Cooksey. COPA and the Police Department also declined to comment.

Bare-bones information hinting at Johnson’s decision started to emerge before the judge entered the protective order. The day before the order was entered, Northwest Side Ald. Nick Sposato, 38th, a longtime friend of the Rialmo family, said he was pleased by reports that the superintendent had ruled the shooting justified.

“He could have taken the easy way out, politically, and ruled against” Rialmo, said Sposato, a former Chicago firefighter who served in the same firehouse as Rialmo’s father. “I just want to commend Eddie Johnson for doing the right thing, for having the courage to do this.”

The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police had called COPA’s ruling “arbitrary and politicized.”

Activists, meanwhile, have called for Rialmo’s immediate firing, and attorneys for the LeGrier and Jones families have backed COPA’s ruling that the shooting was unjustified.

The shooting has garnered intense scrutiny not only because a bystander, Jones, was killed, but also because it was the first fatal police shooting since the court-mandated release a month earlier of video of an officer shooting Laquan McDonald, an African-American teenager.

Upon its emergence in November 2015, the video outraged black and Latino Chicagoans who aired long-standing objections about their treatment by police, and efforts to overhaul the department and curb unnecessary uses of force continue more than two years later.

COPA itself was born out of that controversy. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his allies set it up to replace the Independent Police Review Authority, which was known for conducting cursory investigations and almost always clearing police.

About 4:30 a.m. on the day after Christmas 2015, Rialmo and his partner responded to 911 calls about a domestic disturbance at the apartment in the 4700 block of West Erie Street where LeGrier was staying with his father. LeGrier, apparently suffering from mental health problems, had behaved strangely as a student at Northern Illinois University and had run-ins with police and other students, records show.

Jones, who lived downstairs, pointed police to the second floor. Then LeGrier came down the stairs with a baseball bat, according to an analysis released a year ago by Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx's office, which declined to bring criminal charges against Rialmo. As Rialmo backed down the stairs, he fired eight times, hitting LeGrier six times, prosecutors found. Jones, who stood behind the teen during the incident, was shot once in the chest.

Rialmo has stipulated in court that he knew Jones was close by when he fired, though Brodsky has said his client was nonetheless justified in firing in self-defense.

But COPA's investigation cast doubt on Rialmo's version of events.

No one, including the other officer at the scene, corroborated Rialmo's account of LeGrier swinging the bat, and he did not mention the bat-swinging in all of his accounts, investigators wrote. Rialmo also gave differing accounts of where he was in comparison with LeGrier when the teen allegedly swung the bat, investigators wrote.

Crucially, investigators determined Rialmo was farther from LeGrier when he fired the shots than the officer contended. Investigators wrote that he gave differing statements but placed himself on the porch steps when he started firing. COPA, however, cited a witness who stated that Rialmo was near the sidewalk when he fired, at least 10 feet from the bottom of the stairs.

Just after the shooting, LeGrier's father, Antonio, saw the officer standing 20 to 30 feet from the doorway, he told investigators, according to the COPA report. Further, the shell casings were found in various areas between the porch and the sidewalk, COPA found.

COPA found that a reasonable officer in Rialmo's position would not have believed he was in imminent danger of death or serious harm.

Johnson reached significantly different conclusions on key points of the investigation.

Johnson noted that while Rialmo might not have mentioned the bat swing to a detective, he mentioned it in several other reports and interviews. Johnson also concluded that the bullet wounds to LeGrier’s arm and chest supported the contention that he lifted and then swung the bat. The COPA ruling and civil litigation have both turned on questions of where LeGrier stood when he was shot, but Johnson concluded that the evidence indicated the officers were in danger during “Quintonio’s charge down the apartment stairs.”

Johnson determined that LeGrier’s father would have had an obstructed view and could not have seen where Rialmo was standing just after the shooting. Johnson also dismissed the testimony of the witness who said Rialmo was near the sidewalk when he fired.

That witness, Johnson wrote, ducked investigators’ attempts to reach him. Johnson noted also that the witness did not say he had directly seen the shooting, and the superintendent posited that he had confused Rialmo and his partner. Johnson also noted that the witness acknowledged smoking marijuana before the shooting.

The superintendent concluded that the shell casings were irrelevant to determining where Rialmo stood, because the scene was trampled by paramedics and firefighters, among other reasons.